NOW MEGABUCK ENDORSEMENTS FOR NEWBIES TOO!

New, insane endorsement-economics is blitzing B-town. Does it add up to make sense?! 4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri tries to decode this new phenomenon...

Celeb Advertising & Brand Endorsements have always come with the territory in Adville – especially in the last decade and a half. The Big B, SRK and M. S. Dhoni have (for example) rewritten the rules game to showcase every conceivable FMCG product category, attracting fee-deals that could wake the dead … or finance a couple of five-year plans of newly, independent countries – which ever came first! Revered icons with proven track record, their insane package (swear advertisers) is in direct proportion to their astonishing connect with every section of a celeb-hungry nation and thumping brand-equity they invest in the products they endorse. Fair enough … although TAM surveys and reports continue to indicate that less than 10% of the consumer-base of these ads actually purchase the products these (or any) stars endorse. Despite this, the fever rages on…

If that is difficult to fathom for the sane and logical mind, imagine hearing about new stars nowhere near the power and glory of the older lot, with no great earth-shaking track-record, charisma or mass-appeal (‘theek-theek’ according to a young Bolly-junkie) demanding and scooping up crazy paychecks on the endorsement front. Ranbir Kapoor – with one spectacular dud and one decent hit – is said to be hitting the Rs.4 crore mark! Imran Khan, with one decent hit and two dabbas is reportedly asking Rs.3.5 crore per endorsement. (It’s another matter that no one is playing ball, as yet!) Deepika Padukone – possibly the most successful of the lot – is in the Rs.2 crore bracket with Genelia D’souza, a little behind with Rs.1.5 crore. Interestingly, all of them (except Imran) have tripled their endorsement fees in the last few months and – well – are getting takers! So, who’s lost it, guys – the Advertisers, these new kids or the celeb-hungry bozos dedicating their life and times to B-town moves?
 
“The Dodo Advertisers who believe that casting a celeb will instantly rock their product’s image and bottom lines!” That’s the iconoclastic Pritish Nandy, forever ready to tilt at windmills. While it is totally true that movie stars and cricketers are perceived as the nation’s most glamorous, popular and favourite role-models, Nandy believes that there are two bigger truths defining the space “both advertiser-driven. One is the desire to do a quick kill in terms of public attention without the appropriate consideration to the brand fit. Two, the hysterical anxiety to be seen with these stars to go up the social ladder among his peer group.” The best advertising (ZooZoo, HDFC, Vodafone) don’t need to pursue this track, says Nandy, and are none the poorer for it. Ogilvy’s resident dude Sumanto Chat comes in next. He believes that it has to do with the huge youth-connect that these star-kids enjoy in a space and categories that cater to youngistan. Then, of course, there is a celeb-struck nation and finally “a leg-up in image for the Advertiser and his company!

A Ranbir-Deepika jodi coming to launch his product and then gracing the dinner that follows could catapult him to Page 3 status and is likely to do wonders for the employee-morale present at the event”.

Ad-Guru Alyque Padamse too is convinced that it defines categorically the “thirst that both the Advertiser and general public have for celebhood with ad frat desperate to cash in on it”. However, he warns, that care should be taken to prioritise … otherwise Deepika outscoring the product endorsed in recall value, could be tragic news for the Advertiser! Leo Burnett’s Sainath brings his own spin to the debate. He believes ultimately it is about “effective clutter-busting. New-age India looks for and at new-age stars. There are two kinds of stars. The timeless variety – SRK, Big B, Sachin, Akshay – and the new kids. If the consumer is growing older, he will look for older icons; if he is getting younger, star-kids zoom centre-stage. In a young, resurgent India, this is completely appropriate. A sign of the times.” Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media wraps up this debate with her insightful, knowledgeable and authoritative take. She reckons it has largely to do with the shortage of credible celebs available for endorsement. “SRK and the Big B have been done to death (Remember BINANI CEMENT & LINC PENS? Jeeezus!) – and there is a genuine dearth of sexy, young stars in an environment bursting at the seams with youth-driven products for a gigantic youth market. So I guess, for a quick-hit, grab the latest flavour of the day and go with the flow. The stars too know that this is a cool way to make quick mega-bucks, so strike when the iron is hot. Kal kisne dekha…!”

At the end of the day, certain path-breaking facts emerge. One (unlike earlier times), a star doesn’t have to slog for years and reach a status to gain credibility and pulling-power in the Ad-market. One big hit does it! Two, the publicity machinery has taken on critical dimensions, so media-driven hype (of any sort) for Bolly-stars is big stuff. Finally, Bollywood has discovered the importance of brand-building and with smart packaging go all out to create an image, aura and climate that sells … the result? Its rainin’ moolahs for the Bachhalog, guys!! 

NOW MEGABUCK ENDORSEMENTS FOR NEWBIES TOO!

IS THE FEMALE CONSUMER STILL IGNORED, NEGLECTED & UNDERVALUED?

By all accounts, even in your year 2009, the answer appears to be a resounding YES! 4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri wonders why

The Weaker sex! The Gentler sex! A community given to listen to their heart more than their head; driven by sentiment and emotion, instead of logic and analysis; excited by the colour pink or some floral motif to go for it without a second thought … these are some of the ‘perceived’ notions of marketers across the globe while targeting women. Which world are they living in? A recent US survey has indicated that women today drive the world economy! Globally, they are said to control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, a figure that could zoom north to touch $28 trillion by 2014! Also, their $13 trillion in yearly earnings could hit the $18 trillion mark in the same period. The survey further adds that, in sheer aggregate terms, women represent a growth curve bigger than India and China combined … Despite this, it states how dumbly – and chauvinistically – computer titan Dell wooed the female consumer by its soft-sell, make-it-pink drive. The communication went consciously ‘girly’ emphasising colours, accessories and tips for finding recipes and counting calories. The response was an unanimous and spontaneous protest against “talking down in condescending, dumb-down fashion” to a target group that deserved better … Immediately, damage control and correction course measures darted into action – but the point is: why was this potentially awkward positioning triggered, in the first place? The reason is simple. The phrase “It’s a man’s world” is so deeply ingrained in the male marketer’s psyche that they believe they can get away with any and every thing. Unfortunately, this thinking today must be dumped in the ‘fiction’ area; the truth lies elsewhere. It lies in the simple fact that today’s (male) marketers need to ‘learn’ how to sell to women.

In 2008, a hi-profile, professional consulting group did a comprehensive study of how women felt about their work, lives and how they were being served by businesses. The responses would wake the dead! Generally speaking, they felt hugely undeserved and despite their quantum leaps in the professional and social space, they felt undervalued in the market place and underestimated in the work place. Their multi-tasking is there for all to see, but few marketers have bothered to respond to manufacturing time-saving solutions for products and services specifically designed for them. For example, it is still so difficult to locate a pair of trousers get solid financial advice without feeling foolish, or patronised. Companies continue to offer them poorly conceived products and services and obsolete, irrelevant, outdated marketing narratives that promote gender bias and stereotypes. Examples? Cars are designed for speed not utility, which really matters to woman. Heard – or seen – an SUV built to accommodate a mom who needs to load her two kids into it? Then there was the recent ad for Bounty Paper towels where a husband and son stand, watching a spill cross the room, until mom comes charging and happily cleans up the mess!

While each person’s perspectives are different, there are four broad areas where any sane marketer and company would be well advised to look – and tap. They comprise food, fitness, beauty and apparel. Financial services and health care are also businesses worth zeroing-into. The challenge is to offer easier and more convenient ways to make purchases in an environment where – unlike Indian husbands, 71% of who pitch in on household chores – they get no support from their spouses.

It is believed that when the recession slowly moves out, women will occupy an even more important position in the economy. Then seat belts that cut into the neck, pedals that the woman driver can’t reach, badly designed seats, nothing for women who wear high heels when they drive; kitchen shelves so high that only men can reach them, low security inside apartments should be closely reviewed. Also, in this age of working women keeping long hours in unsafe metro cities, how about a phone that has alarm buttons, instead of the corny colour pink? Or a free beeper with every working moms phone so her kids could just beep and she could call back, pronto? These points apparently were mooted, but cell phone manufacturers found them unimportant and trivial and instead concentrated on pink/floral glitter phone!

It’s time companies and marketers wake up to this new reality, cast aside chauvinistic blinkers and convert these challenges into opportunities. There is a whole slew of commercial opportunities in women’s social concerns. Women seek to buy products & services that do good for the world and hence brands that resonate physical and emotional well being, provide care and education for the disfranchised of the world and encourage love and connection, will benefit. It’s time to recognise the power and equity of the women customers. They will no longer take crap, increasingly trash male-specific selling patterns, resist being stereotyped, segmented by age or income or worse – lumped together into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ woman club.

Beyond looking at them as ‘geographical market’, they should be viewed as intelligent, respected and cherished target groups, with their very own wants, needs, apprehensions, insecurities, dreams … and of course, [sometimes] deep pockets too! That would be the best way to gain breakout growth, loyalty and market share for a sublime and undervalued fraternity who occupy half the sky.
 

IS THE FEMALE CONSUMER STILL IGNORED, NEGLECTED & UNDERVALUED?

NEIGHBOURS ENVY OWNERS PRIDE... NO MORE

[4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri examines the reason for the demise of Onida’s Devil, the latest in a list of disappearing mascots]

First things first. Why are mascots created? Be it the Energiser Bunny, the MGM Lion, the McDonald’s clown Ronald, the Merrill Lynch Bull, the Eveready Cat, Smokey the Bear, the Jolly Green Giant … don’t they still reverberate endearingly in public memory, projecting their own brand of charm? Smart, evolved and insightful marketers unleashed these characters with a clear focused agenda – create something memorable in tune with the architecture and value of the brand and project it in a warm, human way that will connect simply and easily with the prospective customer. Make the inanimate come alive in an entertaining and public-friendly way so that, soon, it acquires a life of its own. Leverage it creatively to fuel brand recall.

In recent times, however, this thinking has gone in for a re-think! Be it the adorable Murphy-baby, HMV dog, Asian Paints Gattu, they’ve all exited. Even the iconic Maharajah was handed his walking slick and hat (crown?) before the Air India biggies realised their blunder and brought him back. Thank God, the Amul mascot still cavorts around … As this goes into print, Onida’s ‘Devil’ has been put to sleep – the symbol that epitomised the brand and show-pieced several memorable ad campaigns. What’s behind these dramatic shifts? A hysterical anxiety to be perceived as modern, contemporary, tuned-in and global in today’s competitive and cluttered market? A pitch for relevance and the here n’ now, soft focusing mushy sentimentality and obsolescence? Global companies don’t seem to be in such a tearing hurry to bid their mascots goodbye … why us?

Sid Ray, Executive Director of Response (Kolkatta) fires the first salvo. While he completely goes along the way the KFC and McDonald’s mascots have been successfully retained (even when the look and feel of their focus has been Indianised) he reckons that the Devil is a different kettle of fish. “It is possible that the marketing team felt that with capital investment involved in an age of heavy-duty competition, techno-onslaught and product features playing a key role, the Devil and the slogan have been rendered obsolete. They don’t fit into the scheme of things”. Dipankar Mukherjee, VP – Marketing, Ideas (East) agrees. “Competition, technology but most importantly cost structures have, I guess, forced them to re-look and re-invent their focus. Mascots anyway are cute and stuff but at crunch-time, they are unlikely to influence the purchase intent. Other more compelling, market and consumer-driven aspects come into play”. However, both agree that often, new teams, have a tendency to sling out everything that the old team had brought to the table – just to signal their entry and prove a point!

Veteran Ad-Guru Alyque Padamsee is up next with all cylinders firing! He endorses the last point vehemently. “New agencies inducted, immediately get into the act and one of the first things they do is trash the stuff that the previous agency did”. He cites the case of the classic LIRIL campaign where the girl, waterfall and signature tune defined the brand. “Now we have it replaced by this re-play of an old Levers launch of 2000! And, does anyone really care about how many parts of the body … I mean, how ridiculous!” He reminds us that THE MARLBORO MAN remains intact and continues to rule. So does the MRF mascot and the UTTERLY BUTTERLY girl. “Clients must really be very careful before leaping into a zone of changing for the sake of changing”. Hi-Profile Artist Sanjay Bhattacharya is more direct. “I think it’s become a fashion today to demolish anything that is traditional in the name of being contemporary, relevant and consumer-driven. It’s total bullcrap and only reflects their inability to intelligently and creatively blend the time-tested brand value with new-age focus. There is nothing wrong with moving away but, my feeling is that it’s done mostly to be perceived as a product or corporation that is keeping with the times … how defensive, insecure and negative!” Ogilvy’s NCD Abhijit Avasthi winds up this debate with his very own evolved perspective. “For me, a mascot is a property that any brand would have created and built up. The issue is the level and depth of work invested into this mascot over time, to constantly maintain a meaningful connect and relevance with the targeted constituency. That is THE real key”. He feels that the Onida guys must have their reasons to do away with the devil. As for new teams and agencies demolishing all work of the old teams, he believes “only a silly, insecure and immature people would take that course. Smart teams would see the big picture before deciding on the way ahead”.
 

NEIGHBOURS ENVY OWNERS PRIDE... NO MORE

HOW TO JUDGE EFFECTIVENESS OF CREATIVES

4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri probes one of the trickiest – and most controversial – zones of the Persuasion Industry, forever open to exciting debate and discussion!

The ‘Creative’ aspect (take, quotient, perspective, call it what you will) of Advertising, despite all the (pretentious? Fake? Learned?) jabberwocky and jargon-spewing of the self-appointed, new-age pundits, remains as vague, esoteric and subjective as hell, driven largely by individual sensibility and his/her view of the elusive connect between brand and consumer. What mustachioed hot-shot Piyush Pandey, for example, may consider chakaas, dada Balki may dismiss as bakwaas! What cool Aggie Dias may consider sublime, spoof-sharpie Ajay Gahelot may trash as ridiculous! It’s neither here nor there … but at the end of the day, surely some kind of criteria must be applied to judge whether the outpouring of (to quote the late brilliant Frank Simoes) – “the crazy, long-haired, unwashed, dangerous, unpredictable, freaky breed, often demonstrating a madness beyond the civilised pale” is able to successfully deliver the goods. To rock with judge n’ jury as well as consumers and marketscape.

Brazilian Marcio M. Moreira, the celebrated, award winning Vice Chairman of McCann-Erickson worldwide and a renowned specialist in cross-border creative development, offers all confused and interested communication practitioners, some simple, sane steps to differentiate between THAT’S NOT LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL, DUMMY & THAT’S ANOTHER TRAIN COMING!!

His opening salvo: To succeed as a Creative person you have to have the skills and sensitivity of the artist, (but wait) combined with the canny brains of a strategist! Strategy in adbiz however has a separate agenda; it is about understanding the consumer, marketplace, category you are competing with and finally what your brand stands for. Unfortunately many starry-eyed, creatives obsessed with clutter-busting-creativity (that looks and sounds sensational but means nothing) goof it big time and instead of awards and appreciation end up with egg on their face. Innovation is the name of the game – the gift of applying imagination to inventiveness, combining existing ideas, thoughts and images in a startlingly new way.

Moreira’s six-point programme to judge effective creatives, begin with: CAN THE IDEA BE PUT INTO WORDS? This is very important because, he feels, without, it runs a serious risk of being an executional solution rather than a creative one. Hence it’s critical that the idea is articulated into words to fully get the import of the idea. Fashion and Cosmetic advertising are great examples of ideas getting confused and blurred due to a total lack of a central idea. This makes it – because of the huge emphasis and reliance on externals like photography, models, make-up, colour, settings, et al – an executional exercise. L’OREAL is a superb example of breaking away from this mode to present a simple yet powerful central idea – YOU’RE WORTH IT.

IS THE BRAND OR PRODUCT CENTRAL TO THE IDEA? This is a disease all of us understand, all the way! Is this great ad that you are frothing over and going bananas … do you remember the product, the promise and proposition that is meant to communicate? Seven times out of ten, we remember the ad (“God, SRK looked so hot! And Kat, yaar she’s a real knockout!”) but, excuse me, what about the …?!
 
WHAT IS THE BREAKTHROUGH CONSUMER INSIGHT THAT CREATED THE IDEA? This is critical because ideas created in a blank space cannot ever hope to connect with consumer desires, feelings, wants, needs, expectations and the target group hence, will have zero interest in it. Meaningful consumer insights are the true catalysts because they articulate the relevance of the idea and hence need to be discovered, explored, mined… Remember consumers are an ever-evolving constituency and the task of the true-blue creative animal is to track and tap into it. Ultimately it is insights that provoke the creation of communication that helps make a brand the ‘preferred’ one.

IS IT ORIGINAL AND RELEVANT? For various reasons – mostly legitimate – unique, special, different and original voices are much-in-demand from the creative cats. It can make the critical difference and the cut required to provide a brand that magical cutting-edge quality. However originality for originality’s sake (“launching: the only Ice-Cream on earth with zebra stripes tasting of both vanilla and strawberry flavour!”) is a total no-no! When, for example, the United Colours of Benetton campaign first broke, it was truly mind-blowingly original both in terms of concept and pitch and totally relevant as both social commentary and cultural/intellectual stance Brand Benetton took in addressing people of different colours, race, religion, language and background. Unfortunately, the connect with their constituency started to get weaker with the brand opting for controversy and shock-tactics.

IS IT AN IDEA … OR MERE EXECUTION? The main problem with executional solution is that they speak the idiom of the profession, business and category NOT the brand! A brand is like an individual with its very own personality and means of expression, speaking its own language. That’s what makes it different. The other problem with executional solution is – like earlier stated – because it is not powered by a central idea, it relies on other things – music, photography, editing, images …and hence is not focused on product offering. These are mostly noticed in advertising that celebrates (blindly) trends.

DOES IT HAVE SCOPE? Does it have the potential of a Big idea? Does it go beyond a jhinchaak catchy slogans or a wise cracks that’s likely to go stale soon enough? Is it rooted in universality and does it resonate at a human level? Does it travel well, across disciplines/media streams to strike target? While this aspect is not applicable to every brand and client, it’s worth paying attention to.

Ultimately, solving problems in an innovative, interesting and engaging way that makes your constituency stop, listen and act … that’s real creativity. Unfortunately, (as the Dadas will tell you), it’s easier said than done! 

HOW TO JUDGE EFFECTIVENESS OF CREATIVES